Thursday, June 30, 2016

Holy moly! My sister just got back from a trip to Iceland this week and when I went to reminisce over our photos from Iceland from last year, I discovered that I never published this post. It was still only a draft in my files. Since Iceland is one of my favorite places in the world (and one of the few places I've been that I actually would love to visit again), I decided that this needed to be remedied immediately! Here is a look back to the first stop on our trip to Europe in May 2016.

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This section was the draft in my folder. All the picture captions I've added in 2017.

May 7:

We have arrived in Iceland!!!

And we are LOVING it!

The weather was absolutely gorgeous {by Iceland standards} and also my brother is randomly here too.

It's too difficult blogging from my iPhone, so I will leave it simple and blog in more detail later about Thingvellir, Gullfoss, Geysir, meeting the missionaries, the best omelet I've ever eaten, the freshest ice cream in the universe, blown up hot dogs, and going to the top of Hallgrímskirkja church.

Takk Fyrir {for reading this blog}!

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With it being a whole year past the trip, I don't remember much about the order we did things in, but here are some jumbled up pictures from our two glorious days in Iceland. We loved our time there and would go back in a heartbeat if given the chance. Next time we'd love to drive the whole perimeter of Iceland on the Ring Road.

Golden Circle

The stark beauty of the landscape took our breaths away.

I took a gazillion pictures and unfortunately can't remember the exact locations of where we were for most of them.

Þingvellir National Park.

Þingvellir National Park has two claims to fame.

#1. It is the location where the European and North American tectonic plates meet.

#2. It is the location of the oldest existing parliament, having met regularly here since 930 AD. As such, it is considered a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Seeing these pictures makes me miss Cami. :(

The weather was crisp, but beautiful!

We spent quite a while wandering around here and were fascinated thinking that we were technically on two continents at once.

Gullfoss

(a waterfall that's part of the Golden Circle)

It was windy as can be there.

Reykjavik

We spent a day exploring Reykjavik and also attended church there.

This was the view from the Hallgrimskirkja church.

Hallgrimskirkja church is the largest church in Iceland.

We packed super light for this trip, so we laughed when we saw what our footwear for church was going to be.

Again....I'm really missing my missionary.

My brother, Matt, and his family were randomly in Iceland too, so we met up to get these world famous hotdogs from a stand there in Reykjavik.

I'm not a huge hotdog fan, so they were a bit overhyped if you ask me.

This, however, was not overhyped. This was the best omelet I've ever had. We got it at some long forgotten restaurant we happened across on the way from the airport into town, but, my oh my, I've found myself daydreaming about the perfect balance of flavors they captured. I wish I would have deconstructed it and taken more pictures of it, so we could have tried to recreate it at home.

ON the way to the freshest ice cream in the entire world!

Yes, those would be cows INSIDE the ice cream shop. Apparently the whole process from cow to cone happens right there in the shop!

We laughed at this funny Icelandic word!

Apparently we weren't moving fast enough for someone.

Here are the missionaries we met in Reykjavik and then saw in church too. They're serving in the Denmark Copenhagen Icelandic speaking mission. There are only about 10 missionaries serving in Iceland at a time.

Church in Iceland was an awesome experience! We loved meeting the members and missionaries and I daresay they loved having visitors!

This Christus inside the church building had a cool story to go with it. I'll have to look it up and remind myself what it was, but for now I'll just document that it was there.

Glymurfoss

This gorgeous waterfall (either the first or second tallest waterfall in Iceland, depending on who you ask) is about an hour away from Reykjavik. It's only accessible after a fairly strenuous hike, but it was well worth every step to see it in all its Icelandic glory.

This truly was a highlight of our entire trip.

The scenery was out-of-this world.

And it was so exciting to finally have kids old enough to appreciate it.

I was amazed at how well they all did and how no one balked at the effort it took to get there.

A cool rock we found along the way.

Keflavik

We stayed in super cute little cabin right next to a picturesque golf course and not far from the airport.

It was 11:00pm and very much not dark yet. In fact, there were still people out golfing at that hour.

Despite our jet lagged exhaustion and the late hour, the girls couldn't resist a quick dip into the hot tub!

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Welcome to our family blog where you can find the latest on our family and read all about Spencer's battle with Acute Myeloid Leukemia (subtype M5). He was diagnosed in January 2012 and was released from the hospital after successfully defeating it on May 31, 2012. Every day he is in remission is a gift to us.

In amongst the leukemia updates you'll find a random conglomeration of humorous, boring, goofy, and inspiring tales (with photos of course) from the adventure of our life with five kids. An adventure that we're taking...a day at a time.